


Requited

by AirgiodSLV



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-21
Updated: 2004-02-21
Packaged: 2019-07-20 09:58:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16134899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: Character attraction he understands, knows how to deal with. It’s much easier than having to turn down a co-star. And he can tell himself that it was Frodo, rather than Elijah, that sparked his response.





	Requited

**Author's Note:**

> For [](https://azrhiaz.livejournal.com/profile)[azrhiaz](https://azrhiaz.livejournal.com/), who requested roses of the right colour and a dark Orlijah, delicately done. Thanks to [](https://mdbfan.livejournal.com/profile)[mdbfan](https://mdbfan.livejournal.com/) and [](https://impasto.livejournal.com/profile)[impasto](https://impasto.livejournal.com/) for editing.
> 
> Content/Warnings: Issues of consent, undercurrents of s/D.

Orlando holds still long enough for the close-up, schooling his features into Elven impassivity and smoothing the tension-lines from his forehead without a second thought. After the final ‘cut,’ he heads for the makeup trailer, determined to beat the migraine before it incapacitates him. The others are a swirl of noise and colour, Elrond’s all-important council breaking up to take fifteen before returning to decide the fate of Middle-earth.

The trailer is cool, as he knew it would be, and blessedly dim. He raises his arms, heavy in Legolas’ formal robes, to rub the muscles in the back of his neck, and rests his head against the cold wall. His scalp itches from the wig, and the sheer weight of the thing pulls his balance off just enough to give him headaches and knotted muscles.

He hears someone enter the trailer, door clicking quietly into place and cutting off the thin stream of light touching the corners of his eyelids, and wonders if they were sent to check up on him. He doesn’t turn around to see who it is, assuming that they will either make themselves known or wait for him to acknowledge them, and is startled by the feel of forceful hands on his shoulders, jerking him around, and then the heated pressure of lips against his own.

The shock holds him still and compliant until he is released a moment later, and then he is staring at Elijah, who is staring back wide-eyed from beneath Frodo-curls, looking as if he doesn’t know what just happened either. Orlando gets as far as _what the…?_ before his body kicks in and his mind finishes _want that back_. And then he’s across the narrow room, holding Elijah’s head steady in his hands, forcing his tongue into that ripe, girl-sweet mouth.

Elijah whimpers after a few seconds, and when Orlando doesn’t respond to that, he digs short-sharp fingernails into Orlando’s arms through the fabric of his sleeves. Orlando breaks away with a silent curse, and when he opens his eyes, he half-hopes that Elijah will have simply vanished so that he can write this off as a work-induced hallucination.

No such luck, as it turns out, but it’s almost a consolation that Elijah looks as if he feels the same way. Elijah clears his throat self-consciously and begins, “I would apologize, but…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Orlando tries to make his voice more flippant than he feels, lips still buzzing from the pressure of Elijah’s mouth. “It happens, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Elijah repeats, and then they wait out an awkward pause. “It was more of a…Legolas…thing,” Elijah finally adds. “At the council, when you…”

“Oh, right.” All of the air seems to leave Orlando’s lungs in a gust of relief, and he even manages a shaky smile. Character attraction he understands, knows how to deal with. It’s much easier than having to turn down a co-star. And he can tell himself that it was Frodo, rather than Elijah, that sparked his response. “All the time, man.”

This time, Elijah returns his smile, and he’s so _nineteen_ for a moment that any lingering arousal on Orlando’s part dissipates into the air. He’s awkward and gawky and fun, and all that’s left of Frodo is the wig and feet. Orlando laughs, and swings an arm around Elijah, glad to feel the tension in those slight shoulders release after a split second of hesitation. “Forgotten,” he promises. “Let’s get back to the set.”

 

* * *

Orlando puts Elijah out of his mind, regains the camaraderie of friendship after a few hours of nervous awkwardness. It doesn’t occur to him until later that Elijah might be more uncomfortable with Orlando _knowing_ that he was attracted to him than he was about the actual attraction. Once that fear was laid to rest with a few whispered words on their way out with the guys and a quick wink, Elijah relaxed and became his usual upbeat self, even when they were alone together for one reason or another.

It’s been three days now, and Orlando hasn’t felt any desire to kiss Elijah whatsoever. As he’s walking past the soundstage on his way to the catering tent, lost in thought, someone rushes past him with the first aid kit. He changes direction out of curiosity, having nowhere to be now that his scenes are over until the afternoon, and walks through the doorway just in time to hear one of the fight directors swear loudly, “bloody high-carbon piece of shit.”

The first thing he notices, glancing around the stage where technical assistants and personal aides are swarming like disturbed gnats, is the broken sword that Peter is examining, blade snapped cleanly near the tip. The second thing is Elijah on the floor, looking stunned as the girl with the first aid kit kneels beside him.

It takes Orlando another moment, after a jostle by one of the anxious crew members, to notice the thin line of blood on Elijah’s cheek, slowly welling to the surface. And then he is caught, hypnotized by the dazed expression in Elijah’s wide eyes and the pallor of his cheek where the blood beads, dirt smudged liberally across pale skin.

He thinks briefly about taking Elijah to the side to regain his composure, but he doesn’t really want to move. It shocks him a little to realize that he likes Elijah this way, off-balance and shaken. Luckily Billy moves in before Orlando can finish the moral debate, one hand curving around the back of Elijah’s neck as he steers them off into a mostly-quiet corner.

Orlando slips out before anyone can see that he’s there, willing away the arousal brought on by the sight of Elijah on the floor, trembling. He decides not to go out with the guys this evening as they had planned, to put some distance between himself and Elijah until he’s more in control. It’s probably safest for both of them.

 

* * *

His resolve lasts until they start filming Fellowship scenes again, and he ends up spending half of his day with Elijah, distracted by the shifts between Elijah and Frodo, and the way Elijah’s makeup artists paint him to look like a porcelain doll. It’s too delicate and dainty a look for Elijah, but it somehow blends into his character, gives him a poised fragility that makes Peter clap his hands in delight when they shoot close-ups. Elijah in character is constantly teetering on the edge of breaking, and Orlando is disgruntled to discover that this only makes him want to push him until he falls over the edge.

He follows Elijah back to the hobbit hangout, snakes out a wrist to tug him around the side just as Elijah reaches the steps. Elijah is startled but acquiescent, allowing the redirection and the curve of Orlando’s arms around his waist.

“Orlando…” he begins, but Orlando hushes him with his mouth, fingers creeping up the sides of Elijah’s torso to grip his shoulders and press him firmly into the side of the trailer. His tongue creeps out to lick at Elijah’s lips until they reluctantly part, and only then does Elijah start to fight back.

“Relax,” Orlando murmurs as Elijah squirms in his arms, away from the pressure of Orlando’s pelvis. “It doesn’t have to be anything. It’s just stress relief.”

“Stress relief,” Elijah echoes, and his tone is still slightly uncertain, but at least he’s stopped fighting.

“Exactly,” Orlando assures him, and leans in to taste again.

Kissing Elijah requires patience, like prying apart the petals of a flower, and Orlando wants simultaneously to bruise him and to protect him from others who would try to do the same. His kiss is more possessive than he expected, but Elijah just gives, yields to him.

“We should move,” Elijah suggests quietly when they pull apart for a breath. “Someone could see.”

“Yeah.” Orlando’s body fights his brain, wanting to trace the underside of Elijah’s jaw with his tongue. “Getting caught out here with you would _not_ be good for my career.”

Elijah snorts, but the tension is back in his arms, bracing him against the wall and Orlando. “Oh yeah, and it would do wonders for mine.”

“Publicity,” Orlando points out, losing his internal battle and nuzzling the soft skin of Elijah’s throat.

“Orlando,” Elijah repeats firmly, and his hands push Orlando’s head away, putting distance between them. There’s a wariness on his face that Orlando hasn’t seen before, defenses that haven’t been called up until they were needed. It cools the heat in Orlando’s body, shuts off the part of him that wants to blindly take and possess.

“Inside,” Orlando offers, but he knows that Billy and Dominic, at least, are already in there.

Elijah shakes his head, echoing Orlando’s thoughts, and then glances to one side, over Orlando’s shoulder. “There’s no one in the warehouse; they’re all on break,” he points out, and Orlando nods agreement, slipping away to the building across the lot before Elijah can change his mind and say no.

Elijah joins him a minute later, which stretches out until it feels like ten, and Orlando pulls him back into the darkness of a corner, lips already parting to encourage Elijah’s tongue. Elijah surprises him this time, fights back by kissing him fiercely in a way that makes Orlando’s urge to protect and break him all the stronger.

He finds himself fumbling with clothing, wanting to leave enough of an impression on Elijah to ensure that this will happen again. Elijah’s pants are drawstring, and it only takes a tug to undo the tie, to loosen them around Elijah’s narrow hips. Orlando wishes that he could unravel Elijah just as easily.

“Oh,” Elijah says in surprise, a bleat of unexpected sound before Orlando claims his lips again and slides a hand inside of his pants.

“Stress relief,” Orlando whispers again, touching his forehead to Elijah’s, his hand working steadily in Elijah’s trousers. Elijah shudders, breaking apart, and Orlando desperately hopes that that’s all this turns out to be.

 

* * *

Friday night they finally get the chance to go out to a club, and the younger members of the cast, Orlando included, jump at the opportunity. It’s been a week since the first time with Elijah in the warehouse, panting and moving against him, and in that space there has been a second time, and a third. Orlando doesn’t think about it when he doesn’t have to. He goes with the flow, rolls with it, let things crash over and around him, and tries not to think about how much of his life has become surfing metaphor. He’s only messed around with a handful of guys, mainly at drama school, and he has the feeling that he’s Elijah’s first, so he’s trying to go slow.

The thing with Elijah is limited to handjobs and enthusiastic rubbing, quick and easy whenever they have a moment to spare and a hard-on to relieve. Sometimes it feels more serious than others, charged and purposeful, and when that happens, Orlando tries very hard not to think about hurting Elijah, about blood staining ivory-flawless skin beneath rouge and brushed-on dirt.

Elijah doesn’t hold back, which makes it even more difficult. Elijah bruises Orlando’s skin, biting and sucking, marking him in places that no one else can see, in ways that Orlando never saw coming.

He thinks once or twice about blowjobs, about Elijah’s pretty fucking lips wrapped around his cock, but he thinks that he would miss the connection too much. The feeling of Elijah’s soft skin under his hands, the sound of his shallow breathing, the way his eyes go wide and his lips part when Orlando touches him in the right spots. Right now, he has the better bargain.

Dangerous fucking thoughts.

He’s watching the dance floor as he thinks, eyes distractedly following a girl near the middle of the crowd, with long blonde hair and a rose behind her ear. She reminds him of his girlfriend, in a way, with the exuberance of her movements and the careless-but-shy way she smiles. He doesn’t sleep with other girls very often, but they both agreed when Orlando left for New Zealand that an open relationship would probably be best. He hasn’t taken advantage of that decision yet, but he thinks that tonight, he just might.

She smiles at him when he sets his bottle down on the table and makes his way towards her, flashing a reassuring grin as they settle into a rhythm together. He loves girls, loves the way they soften and bend when he asks them to, without even _needing_ him to ask. The way they intuitively know what a man wants, just by reading his touch and his skin.

It takes less than an hour and a half-dozen sweetly stolen kisses for him to make up his mind, and she’s more than willing, shyness fading into glittering anticipation. He says her name – Maria – into her hair and the soft shell of her ear above the sparkling teardrop, and she shivers and pulls him closer.

They break for water, and Orlando kisses her farewell before returning to the table. Elijah’s eyes are dark and unreadable, the actor-mask shadowing his expression. Orlando sets up a challenge with his body language, shoulders back and chin cocking forward, although he’s not sure whether he wants Elijah to capitulate or fight back.

“Don’t go home with her,” Elijah says, and the decision has been made for him.

Orlando sets his bottle back on the table, jaw working as he tries to think of something to say. He can’t come up with a single thing.

Ten minutes later, with his hips pressed against the girl’s and his tongue in her mouth, he realizes that she won’t do it for him tonight. Her hands are too light, her lips too pliant, and her eyes aren’t the right shade of blue. All of the pretending in the world won’t make this work, and it wouldn’t be fair to anyone for him to go home with her.

He leaves her with a rueful smile on the dance floor, ignoring her disappointed pout of protest. The hobbit cluster is easy enough to find, but there aren’t enough heads around the table.

“Where’s Elijah?” he asks, and Billy shrugs.

“Went home early.” Billy’s expression holds bemusement, but no suspicion, so Orlando bites back further questions. He thinks about Maria, who would undoubtedly welcome him back in a heartbeat, but the thought brings no heat with it, no flood of arousal like the kind brought by Elijah’s wide, surprised eyes and grasping hands.

He absently wipes the taste of lip gloss from his mouth and calls for another beer.

 

* * *

Elijah avoids him for a few days, but Orlando catches him staring one morning during filming, and jerks his head almost imperceptibly for Elijah to follow when they break for lunch. Elijah starts, but nods in return, and Orlando hears the soft footfalls behind him when he reaches a quiet spot behind one of the equipment vans.

His lips are on Elijah’s the moment they are both out of sight, fingers pressing into the hollows of his cheeks. Elijah’s teeth bite and bruise, fingers tangling in blond wig, and Orlando loses himself completely for a moment before pushing Elijah away to gasp for breath. “Sometimes I get confused,” he confesses, keeping Elijah just out of reach, “about which one of us you want.”

Elijah gazes back at him out of Frodo’s eyes, and the sudden stab of desire forces him to admit that Elijah is not the only one guilty of this particular sin. “You’re pretty,” Elijah murmurs, singsong and lilting. “I like you when you’re pretty.” Then his eyes sharpen, focus and bore through Orlando. “And sometimes I get confused about what you want as well.”

The rewording isn’t lost on him, and neither is the careful way Elijah’s eyes hood as they continue to watch each other. _This is just sex,_ is what he wants to say, but he has the feeling that those words would break Elijah in a different way than Orlando wants, would destroy the illusion that Orlando is infatuated with chasing. “I want you,” he says instead, and pulls Elijah against him before there are any more words to come between them and confuse things.

He bites Elijah’s throat hard as he strokes him off, and savors the reaction, enjoys the feeling of Elijah’s body jerking uncontrollably against his. When he pulls away, Elijah is staring at him, looking dazed and lost. It’s the same look as before, when Elijah was on the floor of the soundstage with blood on his face, and Orlando is amazed at how aroused he is by Elijah’s vulnerability.

Elijah likes him pretty, and he likes Elijah vulnerable, and that doesn’t seem to be pointing towards a healthy male relationship. In fact, he’s fairly certain that he should be hearing warning bells. Especially when his mind drifts off into a fantasy of Elijah naked on his back, taking it up the ass, helpless and begging. Orlando mutters an oath and leans in for another kiss, imagining Elijah bruising beneath his tongue. This isn’t going to be enough for much longer, he thinks. Pretty soon, one of them is going to need more.

He hopes that it won’t be him, but he knows better than that. Just like he ought to know better than this.

Elijah breathes into his mouth, curled around his tongue, and he forgets knowing.

 

* * *

_Elijah moans underneath him, head tilting back as he arches against the mattress. Sweat stands out against his skin in the moonlight, turning his hair damp at the roots._

_“Do you trust me?” Orlando asks, thrusting forward into heat and pressure and ecstasy. “Do you?”_

_Elijah nods, eyes white-blind and glazed, and there are drops of blood on his cheek. Orlando wipes them off, covers Elijah’s lips in a kiss._

_Elijah is getting close, hips jumping erratically as he pushes Orlando for more, and then he’s on the brink, clenching and gasping…and Orlando places his hand over Elijah’s mouth, thumb and forefinger pinching his nostrils closed._

_Elijah tries to scream and can’t, bereft of air, opens his mouth to bite but snaps it shut again when Orlando finishes him with a few quick strokes timed in counterpoint to his thrusts. Elijah’s eyes roll back in his head as he climaxes, and Orlando releases him into unconsciousness, leans down to lick Elijah’s slack lips and coo praises to his skin._

_And somehow there’s blood on Elijah’s face again…_

Orlando wakes up sweating, pulse beating a tattoo between his legs, and wonders how people know when they’ve gone too far. He blinks, disoriented in the afternoon sunlight, until he finally realizes that he’s fallen asleep on his couch and his phone is ringing.

He takes a deep breath before picking it up, trying to shed the sticky, clinging remnants of the dream from his mind. “Hello?”

“Orlando?” Elijah’s voice, which almost shocks him into hanging up. As if Elijah could somehow know what Orlando dreams.

“Yeah, what’s up?” He checks the clock, wincing slightly against the light as his pupils adjust. When he moves to stretch, he displaces the script balanced on his stomach, which falls onto the floor in a flurry of earmarked pages.

“I’m throwing a dinner party tonight.” Elijah pauses, as if expecting to be laughed at, a hint of defiance in his voice. Orlando just smiles silently and waits for him to continue. “And I’m having some trouble with the main course. It’s vegetarian, so I thought you might know…”

“That depends,” Orlando replies when he trails off. “Am I invited?”

He can practically hear Elijah rolling his eyes. “Of course you are.”

“All right, then.” He blinks a few times, trying to get his eyes to focus. His body reacts sluggishly, but allows him to roll into a sitting position. “What are we having?”

“Souvlaki,” Elijah answers promptly, and Orlando bursts out laughing.

“Good lord. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

It’s not until after he hangs up the phone that he realizes he’s shaking, his palms cold and clammy with sweat, and that he’s still hard. He takes another cleansing breath, clearing his mind of the jumbled images and feelings and ghost-senses, and decides that he has enough time for a shower.

 

* * *

He rings the doorbell, and receives a muffled yell through the door in response. He assumes that Elijah is telling him to come in, so he pushes open the door and makes his way to the kitchen. Elijah’s flat is nice, clean and orderly without feeling abandoned, which is amazing considering how little time Elijah must actually spend in it.

He finds Elijah in the kitchen, in the middle of a minor culinary disaster. There’s flour smeared over the bridge of Elijah’s nose, and he looks so much like Frodo in that moment that Orlando has to strongly resist the urge to just clear the counter and take him, amidst the eggs and flour and honey.

Elijah must be making baklava as well.

They begin by setting the kitchen to rights, Orlando taking charge and giving directions while washing dishes, peering at the stained pages of the cookbook. Only after the souvlaki is safely in the oven does Orlando give in to temptation and pull Elijah into him, licking the taste-tested honey from Elijah’s lips. It’s softer than he can ever remember it being between them, and Elijah even laughs a little into his mouth when Orlando strokes Elijah’s tongue with his own.

The doorbell rings.

“They’re early,” Elijah murmurs, his pulling away as reluctant as Orlando’s, stealing a quick goodbye kiss before he turns to answer the door. “But if I don’t let them in, they’ll come through anyway.”

Orlando lets him go, turns back to the sink to wash his hands and splash water over his face. He hears Billy’s laugh a moment later, and then Dominic’s blond head pops through the doorway. “Is it safe to come in?” he asks, grinning mischievously. “I heard there may have been problems.”

“Perfectly safe,” Elijah replies, nudging Dominic out of the way so that he can start pouring drinks. “And if you disrespect the host, you get no dinner.”

Billy laughs again, propelling Dominic into the room so that they can all lounge comfortably against the counters. “I wouldn’t mess with him, Dom. I’m hungry.”

Orlando wipes his hands on the dishtowel and flashes a smile, unable to keep himself from glancing at Elijah, who meets his eyes with an answering smile, practically glowing, warm and soft in the light from the stove.

“…this week,” Billy finishes, and suddenly several people are looking expectantly at Orlando.

“I’m sorry?” Orlando inquires, trying to recall what they were talking about and failing utterly.

“Surfing,” Dominic prompts. “Thursday or Friday. Are you up for it?”

“I can’t make plans for this week,” Orlando admits regretfully, shaking his head. He doesn’t really want to tell them the reason why, but they’ll press him if he doesn’t give it. And they’ll all find out some way or another, regardless. It’s all part of living within a community. “Girlfriend’s flying in to visit.”

Elijah’s eyes go vague and cloudy, and his lids drift to half-mast, the way they do when he’s hiding something. Only in this case, Orlando has a pretty good idea of what he’s hiding. The stab of regret and guilt doesn’t quite change his mind.

“Wanker,” Dominic accuses, but he tempers it with a wink. Orlando shrugs and smiles, and the conversation goes on. Orlando pretends not to notice how quiet Elijah is, and that he drinks more than one glass of red wine with dinner.

Later that evening, after the others have left, Orlando lifts Elijah onto the kitchen table and takes off his clothes, kissing all of the skin he’s felt but never yet seen. He pours olive oil – extra virgin, from the souvlaki, and mostly for the irony – all over Elijah’s groin, jerks him off steadily and slippery while the oil drizzles over balls and thighs and the crease of Elijah’s ass.

Orlando rubs it in, watches it coat and glisten on Elijah’s skin, and then works a single finger into the tiny exposed pucker until Elijah yells and comes hard into his hand.

Then he puts an exhausted Elijah to bed, cleans up the kitchen, and goes home alone. He hates himself for leaving almost as much as he does for staying.

 

* * *

He goes clubbing with the guys the next weekend, to make up for the time he’s missed. Elijah hasn’t mentioned Orlando’s girlfriend, or what happened on the kitchen table, or the fact that Orlando pretends nothing’s wrong, so Orlando does the same out of courtesy. If the others have noticed that he and Elijah are acting slightly off towards each other, they don’t say anything to him. It makes him wonder how wrapped up they really are in themselves, and whether they are undergoing huge life changes and crises that he just hasn’t noticed.

The stilted reserve that Elijah has been showing him for the past few days is gone completely when they meet up, replaced by a vacant bubbling joy that carries him straight through the doors and onto the dance floor. Orlando gazes after him for a second and then turns away, helping the guys look for tables and drinks.

He frowns at the tablet Dominic offers when they finally settle, leaning in and raising his voice to be heard above the music. “What is it?”

“Have you ever done E?” Dominic grins at Orlando’s wary nod. “This is better.”

Suddenly, the too-bright blankness of Elijah’s eyes makes a great deal more sense. Orlando takes the pill and swallows it with a mouthful of water. “What did you give Elijah?” he asks during a momentary lull in the music, scanning the room.

“The same,” Dominic affirms. “We’re a few hours ahead of you, though.”

Orlando glances back, eyebrows raised. There’s nothing in Dominic’s voice or posture to give him away, except for possibly the stillness of his hands. “Has he done this shit before?” Orlando asks, glancing back to the dance floor and catching sight of Elijah in the middle of the crowd, dancing to his own rhythm with his arms in the air.

Dominic frowns, craning his neck to look. “I don’t know. Don’t think so.”

“I’m gonna go keep an eye on him,” Orlando tells him, and with a last gulp of water to keep himself hydrated, he heads into the mass of gyrating bodies.

“Hey,” he says when he reaches his goal, arms curving around Elijah’s waist and pulling him back, briefly, against Orlando’s chest. “How are you feeling?”

“Feel good,” Elijah answers, turning his head to rest a sweaty cheek against Orlando’s shirt and sighing. “Nice.”

 _I’ll bet you do,_ Orlando thinks, but he has to bite his tongue when Elijah suddenly grinds back against him. They dance for the space of three club-mixes, which wind mindlessly into each other through a thumping backbeat, and then Elijah slumps against him, arms looping over Orlando’s shoulders.

“So hot,” Elijah murmurs drowsily. “Dizzy.”

Orlando wants to say something, knows that he should ask when Elijah last had water, but instead he responds to the siren’s song of Elijah’s lips turned up near his collarbone, twists around Elijah’s tongue until he hears a low moan.

The noise shocks him out of it, and he realizes that if Dominic or Billy are watching them, he’s in deep shit. He could probably joke his way out of it, blame the drug-buzz that is starting to creep under his skin, but the glimmer of suspicion would already be planted.

When Elijah tries to pin him for another kiss, awkward movements and lack of coordination forcing Orlando to hold onto him or be climbed like a tree, he says gently, “how about we get out of here?”

Elijah murmurs something that Orlando chooses to take as affirmative, and slowly they make their way out of the club, as the first starbursts of exhilaration begin to pulse through Orlando’s system. He closes his eyes and hopes that they both make it to a house before he starts flying.

 

* * *

Elijah is distracted in the cab on the way to Orlando’s place, tracing patterns on the glass window that only he can see and tapping the fingers of one hand restlessly on Orlando’s thigh to music no one else can hear.

Eventually he tires, pulling back into Orlando’s arms and talking quietly to himself, and Orlando wonders how long it will be until he crashes, and what it would be like to have sex with Elijah when he’s too drug-dazed to care.

They stumble messily into the living room, fingers already grasping at clothes in an attempt to feel fire-stung skin against skin. Elijah bites, tiny sharp stings that bruise Orlando’s lips and leave him feeling swollen and spoiled. Once they cut him accidentally, and Elijah licks at the laceration, lapping up the blood until it stops.

They fall, naked and tangled, into bed, and Elijah mewls when Orlando rolls on top of him, sloppily kissing his way open-mouthed down Elijah’s skinny chest. Orlando wants to quench the fire of the drug with sex, to bury himself within Elijah and burn it off, but he soon discovers that Elijah doesn’t take penetration easily. Orlando isn’t able to get more than two fingers in before Elijah pushes against him, making a soft noise of borderline pain. A cock seems out of the question.

So Orlando fucks him slowly with two fingers while Elijah moans in the cradle of his free arm, trembling, and Orlando shudders in sympathetic, possessive pleasure as Elijah’s body forgets, every fourth or fifth thrust, that it let him in willingly, and attempts with the hot-dry clenching of muscles to reject him.

They both get off at almost exactly the same time, with Elijah’s saliva-slippery fingers clumsily stroking his cock and Orlando’s questing fingertips curving and scraping over Elijah’s prostate. Elijah cries out in strung-together syllables that hold no meaning for Orlando, except for the soft ‘o’ as Elijah comes down, which may have been intended as his name.

He’s crashing. He knows it, can feel the last traces of warm-bright energy fleeing his exhausted body. And he hates this part, where he has to actually look at himself, detached and objective, and consider his actions. It’s why he doesn’t do E, most of the time. He can’t handle coming back down.

Tonight isn’t bad, though, with Elijah warm and relaxed in his arms, breath softly fanning his chest. Tonight he’s not crashing so much as drifting.

The detached, objective part of his brain suggests that he might be falling.

 

* * *

Their shooting schedules are the first thing to try to tear them apart, but they soon figure out that there is a daily hour-long window between Orlando arriving home and Elijah going to makeup, and a hour is really all they need. Sixty minutes in the surreal painted grays of pre-dawn, with the world asleep around them.

Most of the time, Elijah will be up and waiting for him, half-dressed with his hair sticking in all directions, drinking his first cup of coffee. They’ll get each other off, and then Orlando will dress while Elijah showers, and when he makes it into the kitchen there’s always a cup of tea waiting for him, steeping beneath an overturned coaster. Decaf, because he needs to fall asleep within the hour and Elijah knows he can’t stand drinking decaffeinated coffee.

Elijah will snag his second cup on the way out the door, and Orlando will drop him off at makeup on his way home. It’s become such a smooth routine that they don’t even need to think about it.

“Think about it,” Elijah says on one such morning, flipping through his CD travel case and pushing buttons on Orlando’s car stereo. “I mean, is there really a feeling out there that hasn’t been captured by music?”

Elijah’s eyes catch the first bright rays of sunlight, the reflection of the water as they cross a bridge. His hair is spiked and still damp, and he smells faintly of spice-cinnamon. Orlando almost asks him to play _that_ song, but he wouldn’t know how to put it into words.

They chat instead, and Orlando learns all of the little things that he never knew about Elijah, and never thought to ask. Sometimes he forgets that this isn’t forever, that he and Elijah have set up rules and boundaries.

Sometimes, like this morning, they even forget and kiss goodbye.

What they don’t talk about is the fact that the set isn’t really on Orlando’s way at all, or the fact that Elijah doesn’t drink tea.

 

* * *

The last Friday before the break, shooting ends for the principals two hours ahead of schedule. Orlando considers driving home, knowing that Elijah won’t be ready to wake up yet, but his brain takes the familiar turn-off to Elijah’s house automatically. He has a spare key, for the mornings when Elijah’s already in the shower or otherwise indisposed. The house is quiet, and Orlando feels like an interloper as his feet take the familiar dark path to Elijah’s bedroom.

Elijah is half-sprawled on the bed, illuminated in moonlight, and Orlando crawls onto the mattress without thinking, to lean over Elijah and kiss the softly glowing skin of his neck. Elijah is sleep-warmed and sticky, and he makes a quiet noise when Orlando pulls the covers up and slides beneath, kicking off his shoes as he does so. He tangles himself in Elijah’s limbs, pliable and relaxed, and soaks up the heat from Elijah’s core.

Elijah’s lips are parted as he breathes shallowly, and Orlando leans in to suck them into his mouth, one at a time, tracing their outline with his tongue. Elijah sighs a little and shifts, only a hint of pressure against Orlando’s weight before he relaxes back into sleep.

This is beginning to feel non-consensual, like something he should have asked permission for in advance, so he backs off enough to take a deep breath and clear his head.

He would have left, he tells himself, if the angle and the moonlight weren’t highlighting Elijah’s skinny torso, the pale skin in sharp contrast with dusk-rose nipples, still flat and soft against Elijah’s chest. Orlando can’t stop himself from bending to take one in his mouth, rolling it around gently with his tongue until it reluctantly firms beneath his lips.

He groans softly when one of Elijah’s hands flops onto the back of his neck and rests there, limp and warm. Elijah is still radiating heat like a furnace, and Orlando’s lips map out territory they know, but which still seems unfamiliar without tension and movement and urgency. He takes off his clothes as he goes; wanting to feel more of Elijah’s sleep-soft skin against his.

He’s painfully hard where Elijah is still soft, so he shifts his weight slightly, propping himself up on one elbow and throwing one leg over Elijah’s hips, so that his pelvis is pressed along Elijah’s thigh. His first strokes are slow and experimental, trying to find the best friction without waking Elijah, who rolls toward him slightly and murmurs when Orlando presses their foreheads together, kisses Elijah’s temple and nose and cheek.

The strands of Elijah’s hair tickle his skin as he thrusts, building a rhythm that shifts with his movement until he is steady between Elijah’s lax thighs.

He knows the moment that Elijah comes awake, because the muscles in his legs and abdomen ripple and he releases his breath in an explosive sigh. The erection that had been slowly firming against Orlando’s leg suddenly springs to life, and they gasp together when the head of Orlando’s cock slides off-center and up the length of Elijah’s.

Elijah whimpers, and his eyes roll behind still-closed lids. Orlando swears and shifts again, rolling over top of Elijah and pulling the limp body with him, so that Orlando ends up cradling Elijah’s pliant torso in his arms as he thrusts, as Elijah’s hips tilt up to meet him on the downstroke.

He holds on until Elijah comes with a surprised cry, and then works himself hard against Elijah for a few mindless seconds until he climaxes and collapses, panting. Elijah’s arms curve around him, supportive and gentle, and the fingers of one hand smooth over his shorn hair.

They lay in silence for several minutes, Orlando’s head against Elijah’s chest, listening to his heartbeat, and then Elijah says softly, “I could wake up like that.”

Orlando fights the tension trying to overcome his lethargy and makes a noncommittal noise before saying, “you don’t have to. You’ve got another hour or two to sleep.”

Elijah hums acknowledgement and doesn’t press the issue. They both know full well that Orlando understood him, that Elijah isn’t just talking about this morning or even this weekend; that one of them is eventually going to have to make a decision.

But not now, Orlando thinks, as Elijah’s breathing evens out again and Orlando’s limbs grow heavier. Not yet.


End file.
